With two races remaining, Bill Sweedler finds himself in a championship dogfight.

The Westport resident and co-driver Townsend Bell have held the point lead in the United SportsCar Championship's GT Daytona class since winning the class in the season-opening 24 Hours of Daytona.

But after Sunday's Oak Tree Grand Prix at scenic Virginia International Raceway, the two find themseles part of a five-way logjam atop the standings.

Sweedler and Bell finished eighth in GTD in the run over VIR's 3.27-mile layout in their AIM Autosport No. 555 Ferrari 458 Italia.

They are now tied for the point lead with Dane Cameron -- who co-drove the Turner Motorsport No. 94 BMW Z4 to first in class with Markus Palltala -- and the Alex Job Racing tandem of Leh Keen and Cooper MacNeil. All have 244 points with two events left on the schedule.

Cameron and Palltala took the victory in eighth place overall in the event that included only the USCC's two production-based classes. They finished 1.420 seconds ahead of the GTD runner-up No. 63 Ferrari entry handled by Alessandro Balzan and Jeff Westphal.

Giancarlo Fisichella used a last-lap pass to claim the overall win in a Ferrari GT LeMans entry for he and co-driver Pierre Kaffer. The more powerful GTLM cars took the top seven spots overall.

With 27 cars in the field in the two classes, Sweedler and Bell finished 15th overall.

The next event for the series is Sept. 20 at the Circuit of the Americas near Austin, Texas, with the Oct. 4 Petit Le Mans at Road Atlanta concluding the first season of the United SportsCar series.

If it's any consolation to Sweedler and Bell, they will wrap up one championship just by starting the Road Atlanta event. They lead the GTD standings in the Patron Endurance Cup, a series-within-a-series encompassing the four major American endurance contests: the 24 Hour of Daytona, 12 Hours of Sebring, 6 Hour of the Glen and the Petit Le Mans, a 10-hour or 1,000-mile event.

Scott Sharp's Extreme Speed Motorsports cars and the rest of the Prototype class did not compete at VIR. The USCC's top-flight cars will be back in action at the Texas event.

Silk solid again

Ron Silk scored his third straight top five finish in NASCAR Whelen Modified Tour action when he claimed a hard-fought third place in last Wednesday's 150-lap event at the high-banked Bristol Motor Speedway.

"We had a pretty good car," the 30-year-old Norwalk driver said after the race. "We were disappointed after qualifying but got good lanes on restarts in the first half of the race.

"All in all, it was really a good day."

Silk started the No. 6 TS Haulers modified in 24th spot in the field of 39 starters from both the NASCAR northern and southern modified circuits.

He climbed as high as third after the lap 75 mid-race break, and lined up fourth for the final restart on lap 143. He passed tour point leader Doug Coby in the waning laps to finish third behind first-time NWMT winner Tommy Barrett Jr. and Bobby Santos III, who led much of the race.

Coby settled for fourth ahead of Sprint Cup standout Ryan Newman.

With 10 of 14 races in the books, Silk now sits all alone in fifth place with 368 points. He trails Coby (407), Justin Bonsignore (403 after a sixth-place finish at Bristol), Ted Christopher (374) and Santos (373).

The Whelen tour is off until a Sept. 13 event at Riverhead, Long Island, with dates at New Hampshire Motor Speedway (Sept. 20), Stafford Speedway (Sept. 28) and Thompson (Oct. 19) concluding the campaign.

While the win was the first for the 19-year-old Barrett, it was the second straight for the Christopher Our-owned No. 22 team. Mike Stefanik drove the car into Bristol's unique victory lane last August.

The Bristol race will be televised on a tape-delayed basis at noon Sunday (Aug. 31) by Fox Sports 1.

Izzo a winner

Dylan Izzo of Westport had to pass standout Nick Lascoula twice to take the lead and the victory in Friday night's Legends car feature at Seekonk Speedway in southeastern Massachusetts.

The 18-year-old Izzo got past Lascoula, who has won 10 of the 12 Legends car events run at the quarter-mile track located just east of Providence, R.I., on lap 19 only to have a yellow flag fly, negating the move.

But Lascoula got sideways on the ensuing restart and Izzo raced past to take his first victory at Seekonk in just his second outing at the track. Lascoula settled for second with Brandon Martinez third.

For Izzo, who won the 2012 track championship at Waterford Speedbowl, it was his fourth feature win of the year. He won three times early in the season at the Speedbowl, but hasn't run the southeastern Connecticut oval since a runner-up finish on July 12.

Izzo finished second to Lascoula in his only other Seekonk appearance.

LaJoie keeps truckin'

Corey LaJoie made his second start of the season in the NASCAR Camping World Truck Series and brought home a 10th-place finish in Bristol's rain-delayed event.

The 22-year-old LaJoie, son of Norwalk native and two-time Busch Series champ Randy LaJoie, qualified the No. 92 Ricky Benton Racing Ford 21st but methodically made his way forward during the 200-lap test. He got as high as eighth and then held off Jeb Burton in the final laps to finish 10th.

LaJoie had finished 17th in his previous outing in the RBR entry in June at Kentucky Speedway.

Brad Keselowski won the Bristol event, which was moved to Thursday morning when rain soaked the Tennessee track Wednesday night shortly after the conclusion of the modified race. Keselowski became the 25th driver to record wins in all of NASCAR's top three divisions.

Rocco reaches 100

With wins in both the SK modified and late model features Saturday night, Keith Rocco became just the third driver in the 64-year history of the Waterford Speedbowl to win 100 main events. He now has 21 victories at the 'Bowl this season -- 10 each in the SKs and late models, and one in Valenti Modified Racing Series competition.

The Wallingford driver, who set a single-season record with 24 total feature wins last year, has his sights set on surpassing Don Collins (101 wins) and Phil Rondeau (106) to become the track's all-time winningest driver. Rocco's first Waterford win came back in 2003 in a street stock.

Tim Jordan finished second to Rocco in the 35-lap SK modified feature. Tyler Chadwick was third, followed by Paul Kusheba IV, the former Norwalk Karting Association competitor who equaled the best finish of his rookie campaign in the SK ranks.

Brent Sweet of Monroe -- whose grandfather, Bill Sweet of Norwalk, dominated full-fendered action at Waterford in the 1960s and '70s -- finished eighth and matched his best finish of the season.

The SKs take center stage this Saturday at Waterford with the longest run of the season at the third-mile track, a 150-lap test. Heats start at 5 p.m. and the features at 6:30

Stafford plays host to the Valenti modified series Friday night. Track regulars including Rocco, Christopher, Pitkat and Preece are expected to challenge the visitors in the 80-lap feature.

Veteran Dwight Jarvis came from the back to capture the VMRS event Saturday night at Monadnock Speedway in Winchester, N.H. It was his eighth career VMRS victory, six of them at the tricky Monadnock quarter-mile oval.

Pennink finished second and Woody Pitkat third. Bonsignore, who held the point lead going in and is trying to win titles on both the VMRS and NASCAR tours, finished 21st.

Dirt trackin'

Young Kyle Armstrong of Milford scored the first feature win of his brief career Saturday night at Lebanon Valley. Ed Marshall of Ridgefield was 10th.